Friday, August 10, 2007

U.S. consumers this year will spend more of their day surfing the Internet than reading newspapers or going to the movies or listening to recorded music, according a study released on Tuesday.

Well, you have to figure it was only a matter of time.

How are people spending their time with media?

In 2006 consumers spent the most time with TV, followed by radio, which together combined for nearly 70 percent of the time spent with media. That was followed by recorded music at 5.3 percent, newspapers at 5 percent, and the Internet at 5 percent.

But this year the study forecasts the Internet will take up a bigger chunk of time spent with media than either newspapers or recorded music. Internet will move up to 5.1 percent, while newspapers and recorded music each move down to 4.9 percent.

From 2001 to 2006, the average amount of time spent by the typical consumer on paid media has jumped 19.8 percent. Over the same period, overall time spent with traditional or ad-supported media – such as broadcast television, radio and newspapers – declined 6.3 percent, the study found.

As of 2006, ad-supported media still had a 53.8 percent share of the total amount of time people spent with media, versus 46.2 percent on for-pay media, which include the Internet, cable and satellite TV, movies seen in theaters, books and recorded music.

And what about money?

Last year, the top two advertising mediums were newspapers, at $55.7 billion, and broadcast television, at $48.7 billion, according to VSS.

But it estimates that by 2011, overall Internet advertising will become the largest advertising medium, at nearly $63 billion, describing the shift as "a watershed moment" in the media business.